Thursday, December 31, 2015

Life got insanely busy in July and the blog was the first thing to go. I took a long term sub job at the local middle school, fast tracked finishing school, and the rest of life amped up for fall. Cross country every day left little time for recovery. It's a crazy life, but I wouldn't trade it for anything!

July:

In July we celebrated Peepaw's 90th Birthday. How sweet it is to watch our grandparents grow old together. He is truly a member of the Greatest Generation and I feel such pride when I think of the legacy he's lived.

We hosted our color run fundraiser for the Cross Country team.

And we went to Kids Camp with our church.

August:

August was full of last minute before-school fun and getting a room ready!

Football season and Cross Country season began taking our weekends with a vengeance.

September:

Literally every photo I took in September was of Cross Country. That month was in and out like a flash. Our runners were SO GOOD this year, but also so young. We're growing together.

October:

October saw my sister's 16th birthday, lots of fun dress up days at church, more running, and our fall carnival. We also had some fun dress up days at school and enjoyed time together!

We also went on a Women's Retreat with church for an overnight trip. It was such a good "refresh" moment.

November:

November was very full and had a ton of variety.

We went to state with Cross Country (and Foot Locker Invitational).

We had a fun Clemson visitor at school.

We celebrated thanksgiving with friends and family.

We also started Christmas prep with decorations and Toy Soldier practice for Hanging of the Green.

December:

December was crazy busy! School, church, and home were all insane!

We started the month with a missions emphasis week at Church. Our precious Dominican Missionaries spent the week with us. It was a wonderful challenge.

We had our Hanging of the Green program for the first time in a few years and I rounded up a group of my friends to be Toy Soldiers. We had so much fun!!!

We rounded up the semester with so much fun at school:

We celebrated Christmas with friends:

And family:

And we rounded out the year with lots of fun!

Here's to a even more invigorating 2016.

I love the crazy, busy life we lead and wouldn't change it for anything else!

I'm going to try to pick back up the pieces of the blog, if for nothing other than my sanity!

Friday, July 10, 2015

I feel like June was such a blur. With the end of school came so much busyness, yet so much joy. Bible School began on Wednesday nights. We are doing a science-y theme and Margaret and I get to play scientists and do an object-type lesson each week with the kiddos.

We are spending our evenings with the cross country team....Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays are full of practice, quick dinners, and lots of family time because of it. I love this sport and summer workouts may be my favorite part of the whole season.

We celebrated with our precious friends the one-year-old birthday of Liam. We've loved Liam since before he was born and he added such a precious and unique aspect as the first baby born into our friend group. He has no idea yet just how loved he is by so many!

This year's cross country time has been "improved upon" by the addition of morning strength and conditioning at Velocity. Yall...talk about hard!

This precious kiddo and her mama visited for a couple days this month and we went to see Frozen on Ice!!!! (More on that in a couple of days). I love spending time with family and it was special to be with just the Barnes girls for a couple days.

Morgan came with us to Frozen on Ice.

We prepped for TWO mission trips. Baltimore was incredible and the Dominican Republic was laborers. Read about them here and here.

We celebrated our June friends' birthdays (shout out Micah, Michael, and Andi) by the pool and tried to savor the time we had together as friends, with some of us scattering all over the globe in the month of July.

Baltimore trip happened.

Between the two mission trips, we took Live It local and did ministry at our nursing home. In July, we will host block parties, and do several other Live It Locally missions projects.

We had to purchase a battery and alternator for my car. God is so good in the easy times and in the hard times, and financially, we have been so blessed with "just enough" our entire marriage. I will never forget to be grateful for every dollar.

And I ended the month by packing and heading out to the Dominican, which, you've heard all about!

July should be full of lots of school-doing and getting back to normal, if that is even a possibility.